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The first project of the year was future cinema, for this I decided to project some visuals in a skate park to change the atmosphere for the skaters.

After a few weeks of preparation we had everything ready and where prepared to go ahead with the projecting. We just had to get our second projector from uni. This was more difficult than we imagined because the one we intended to borrow was already being used but Liam managed to get us one from another department, so we quickly got back on track.

We had had a lot to set up at the park so when we had everything ready we left for Bridport. Before going to the park we had to drop by Will’s to pick up some more floodlights and extension cables for the equipment, we tested the lights and found two needed new bulbs. With the lights and power sorted, Will dropped Jack and me at the park to begin setting up. We set up the flood lights in the same corner as the projector so we could direct light away from the ramp we used as a screen. when it came to setting up the projectors, the drivers crashed on my laptop and we couldn’t get a cable to connect a mac so we had to start out with one only one projector. Once we sorted out this problem we had some fun projecting in different parts of the park. We tried to project in a way as to capture the skaters shadows which created a really cool effect. Despite some early problems with this project I thought everything went really well.

For the second project I decided to build my own guitar. I knew I’d find this fun and interesting because I play guitar and I’m interested in the working of musical instruments. When I started the work for this project I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out. I was really pleased with how my guitar turned out and now I know a little about making a musical instrument I think it’s something I would like to try again. If I tried to make another guitar in the future I’d like to make a proper cigar box guitar. I Think I’d use a thinner neck because the width of this one’s neck makes it fairly difficult to play. I’d also like to try my hand at making a bass. I’d like to buy all the proper pick-ups to try and get the best possible sound.

Originally I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the guitar performance wise, so it was good to sit down and brainstorm with some others, this was when we finally came up with the idea to look at war. I think everything I could say about the video is covered in depth in the video analysis.

Overall I think the project went really well. I was especially pleased with how my guitar turned out especially considering my lack of tools and the fact I have no previous woodwork experience. For something to labour intensive I enjoyed the making the guitar a lot more than I expected to.

I think the final result of this project is better than anything I’ve done previously. I think it works well as a piece of experimental music and as a piece of art when combined with the video. I would like to experiment further with experimental music and with handmade instruments.

For my professional project I decided to work in a group of three people. We knew this was the optimum amount because we would be doing a lot of filming, and for the most part would be using three cameras. For this project we planned to start a company which would film promotional music videos for bands. We knew we already had one band interested in filming a video, a local band called Rapids. When we suggested we where interested in shooting music videos Amanda introduced us to The Longest Day, a local band who also wanted a video shot.

We decided to make The Longest Day video our priority as we knew rapids where busy with touring commitments over the next few weeks, so we agreed to meet at uni to discuss what sort of video they wanted and what song they planned to use. The meeting went really well as it became apparent to us that the band had a really clear idea of what they wanted, and all we had to do was put this into action.

The band’s idea was to have a video based in a hostile post-apocalyptic wasteland, after some unexplained tragedy has dramatically changed the landscape of the earth. The main character in the video would be a traveller doing his best to survive in this hostile environment. He would be apparently trying to escape some threat, comforted by a photograph that the viewer would never see. The band wanted us to take as much inspiration as possible from John Hillcoat’s 2009 post-apocalyptic drama the road, part of this being the threat of cannibals who would occasionally be seen following the traveller. The photograph would be a focal point of the video, with the traveller taking some comfort from it. The viewer would wonder what it was a photo of, until the end of the video when the camera would pan round the traveller and come over his shoulder, the video would then cut right before we actually see the photograph, similar to the un-subtitled line that makes everyone lie down in Radiohead’s video for the song Just. The band wanted to make this a video for their song Kamikaze Dream. The line “the easiest day is yesterday” alluding to an easier time before the “apocalypse”

Since we knew everything the band wanted, we decided to start storyboarding and location scouting. Over the next few weeks, we drew up a story board and looked at a lot of different locations. In preparation for filming we looked at several abandoned houses, a council estate, several location around the Sailsbury plain area and several more in the new forest. While some parts of Sailsbury where suitable, most of the area looked to “green” for the post-apocalyptic feel we wanted. We finally decided that if possible we would like to shoot the scenes with the band playing in Sopley, where we filmed our terrorist scenes last year. We decided that with the abandoned buildings all around it would create a good contrast to the grass and help with the the post apocalyptic elements.

The next project we would undertake was to film the acting and costume design production of “Coyote Was Going There” We had to arrive at 10 O’clock so we could get everything set up in time to film the main show which was at 7 O’clock, we also wanted to watch the final dress rehearsal and get a wide shot of it in case we needed any extra footage. We got everything set up by 12:30 so once we’d made sure everything was fine we had an hour and a half to kill until the start of the dress rehearsal.

Since we’d decided we were only going to get the wide shot of the dress rehearsal we decided to watch it from the audience to get an idea of what we’d be shooting come the final production. We figured this would give us a chance to see what we were dealing with and get an idea of the shots we needed. This turned out to be a good idea because when we came to film the main show we were dealing with. The main show started at 7:00 and we were all in place to film. from what I can tell we got some really good footage and really built on our experience from last year. All in all it was a really good day.

Our next undertaking was the filming of “Ship of Fools” in preparation for which we again borrowed three cameras and a mic from the film store. It would turn out that there was only space for a 2 camera shoot so we ended up having one spare.

We arrived at 11 to set up the cameras and microphone so we’d  be set up in time to film the dress rehearsal so we’d have a back up if anything went wrong

Everything went according to plan exept for two minor problem. Half way through the dress rehearsal one of the cameras had an error so for the main performance we had to change to the third camera. And during the main performance in the evening the character speaking was blocked from view by a member of the audience, a problem we hadn’t accounted for. unfortunately because of the audience the wide shot from camera two was rendered mainly useless but for the one scene in which both were blocked we plan to cut in the footage from the dress rehearsal, if we do this we can cut in crowd audio from the evening performance to make it blend in seamlessly with the rest of the footage. After this scene we raised the camera slightly so the audience no longer got in the way. Unfortunately there was nothing we could do about the wide shot because there was no space for another tripod and no way of raising camera two without getting in the way of the main shot from camera one, due to this most of the performance became a one camera shoot.

If I were to do this again i would start out with the camera higher up so the audience didn’t get in the way, although in the end this was a problem we dealt with. Unfortunately there was nothing we could have done with camera two as there was no other space for it in the small area we had

After filming of Ship of Fools and Coyote Was Going There, we decided to focus on the video for The Longest Day, unfortunately, it became difficult to get the time to film with them as the whole band are juggling work commitments as well as their commitments to the music.

After weeks of meetings it became apparent that we weren’t going to be able to film a music video for either band. The Longest day just had to much on their hands with work commitments. Similarly, Rapids where so busy recording that they wouldn’t be able to find any free time to record.

Because we couldn’t film The Longest Days promotional video, we decided to film a live performance video for them when they played their show at the Portsmouth Railway Rifle Club. We arrived early and set up three cameras to record the gig. We recorded the the entire show including three other bands but focussed mainly on The Longest Day’s set. We got some really good footage and decided to start editing as soon as possible.

In conclusion, this project went fairly well. We really wanted to film a promotional video for both bands and not being able to do either was hugely disappointing but the live footage we shot for the longest day made up for it for us. Despite having filmed the live video, we plan on keeping in touch with the longest day and filming a promotional video whenever we get the chance. If I where to do this project again, I think I’d try to be more organised with the band. Had we got everything ready to film earlier we may have been able to make time to film the longest day.